Month: December 2010

If you’re a parent, you’ve stood in slow-moving lines keeping parental order while your children wait for their chance to sit on Santa’s lap. But if Christmas is the celebration of Christ’s birth, where’s the line to see Him? Check out this great song by Steve Haupt that’s gone viral with his daughter Becky Kelley’s music video.

How should Christian parents handle Santa Claus? Is it OK to tell children there is one–or let them believe it if they hear about him from other children or relatives?

For every Christian parent who thinks it’s a harmless fantasy for their son or daughter to enjoy along with their friends, there are three who are adamant that no Christian parent should permit a son or daughter to risk being distracted from the Christ child at Christmas.

I’m not convinced that all the Santa “trappings” are that big of a deal. For example, I don’t know that letting little Timmy sit on Santa’s lap at the mall and tell him what he wants for Christmas undermines the manger. Or that buying some discount wrapping paper decked out with Santas is a spiritual calamity.

I do think it matters more what Timmy’s mom and dad tell him–or let him think about Santa. If l tell my children that the guy at the mall or on TV delivers their presents on Christmas eve–or neglect to correct what friends tell them about Santa, I wonder how that is different from deception? And even if they can’t say the word or define it, I think that’s exactly what children will look back on it as once they learn the truth.

Why not tell them that Santa Claus is a fable based on fact? Tell them the story of St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra (in modern Turkey) who lived in A.D 200-300’s. We don’t know exactly when because there’s not a single historical document from his day speaking about his life. But biographers writing within 200 years say his parents died and left him with great wealth. Which he gave away. One of the most famous legends is that a poor man with three daughters could not pay the dowry to marry off his eldest daughter. He was even too broke to buy food. The story goes that Nicholas learned of it and threw a bag of gold in the house during the night. He did the same with the second and later the third daughter. He wanted to do it anonymously but the last time the father was waiting and discovered the identity of his benefactor.

Later when he was in the ministry, he reputedly put gold coins in shoes when they were left outside the homes. In the early 300’s when Diocletian set out to destroy the church, Nicholas was imprisoned for years. When released he continued to faithfully serve the Lord for several decades. While I don’t put much stock in some of the outlandish miracles he’s claimed to have performed, to me it’s telling that he neither wrote about himself–nor had others write about him. We know that he existed, but he seems to have been quite disinterested in leaving a personal legacy.

Which makes the tale of him being chosen Myra’s bishop, plausible–and marvelous. When the bishop there died, Nicholas traveled to the city with other ministers and bishops to select the man’s successor. As was his custom, Nicholas got out of bed early and went to the church to pray. An elderly minister was already there and asked him, “Who are you my son?”

“Nicholas the sinner” came the humble reply. “And I am your servant.” The aged priest asked him to follow him and they entered a room of the assembled bishops.

“I had a vision that the first one to enter the church in the morning was to be our new bishop. Here is that man: Nicholas.” Indeed he was chosen as bishop. His generosity and humility are legendary. But legends usually have a core of truth to them. That’s the core our children can benefit from. At least, if it doesn’t eclipse Jesus. Nicholas would have hated that.

More from October’s Lausanne Congress in South Africa: story of an 18 year old student originally from North Korea. No wonder the third world is where the Spirit’s got room to work. A testimony like this repudiates the prosperity gospel and makes a case for suffering as one of God’s most powerful tools in kingdom building.

They called it Cape Town 2010. Perhaps the largest gathering of international Christians…, ever.

The Lausanne Movement is the brainchild of Dr. Billy Graham. Preaching in more and more foreign countries the great evangelist pondered how the world’s evangelical Christians could work together to evangelize an increasingly complex and unstable world. After sharing his vision with 100 world leaders, in 1974 Dr. Graham gathered 2700 Christian leaders from 150 countries in Lausanne, Switzerland (hence the movement’s name), a congress TIME magazine described as “a formidable forum, possibly the widest ranging meeting of Christians ever held”.

Lausanne launched a movement. A second congress was held in 1989 in the Philippines, and this year’s was the third. The impact Lausanne has had on world evangelization and Christian unity has been far reaching. But there’s always been a current of tension in each congress as well as in the dozens of conferences sponsored in between, over the relationship of evangelism and social efforts to relieve suffering. Which claim is right?

The primary work of the Church is evangelism

Although the primary work of the church is evangelism, working for things like feeding the hungry should be the result of individual faith and a call on the church.

The work of evangelism and the work of meeting people’s legitimate needs are equally the work of the Church, are equally the work of the gospel.

In his address to the delegates Pastor John Piper preached that Christians must respond to all kinds of suffering of all people. Then he added, especially respond to the threat of eternal suffering–in other words, without neglecting social justice, evangelization is at the front of the line. World Vision’s Corina Villacorta emphasized that the acts Jesus did when he was here was riddled with compassion for people’s sufferings. She decried the inequity between rich Christians and poor ones.

In the face of such tensions Denver Seminary president Dr. Mark Young quipped from Cape Town, “Those primarily engaged in social justice and development ministries quote St. Francis, ‘Preach the gospel at all times — necessary, use words.’ Those involved primarily in preaching wish that St. Francis had said, ‘Preach the gospel at all times — If necessary, don’t use words.'”

It’s not just Lausanne. For over a hundred years this tension has pulled the American church back and forth. Many remember how mainline Protestants in the early 1900’s got so preoccupied with social justice issues they dispensed with evangelism. (Remember Glenn Beck famously warning his listeners that if their church talked about social or economic justice, they were code words for communism?) Some of these denominations never recovered biblical Christianity but preached a “social gospel”, a form of good news which turned out to be bad news: Jesus got demoted from atoning sacrifice to nice example. Certainly in this case, the food was not the good news.

Fearful of this slippery slope, some Christians wash their hands altogether of things like soup kitchens, health clinics–of anything that smacks of “social services”. But repeatedly the prophets, Jesus and the apostles send us to meet people’s needs: the poor, the widows, the orphans, lepers, aliens (outsiders). The Scriptures say…

Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts.

Share your food with the hungry…, provide the poor wanderer with shelter…, when you see the naked…, clothe him.

Faith without works is dead.

Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

Which of these three was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?

Sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.

There’s no way to dodge the Bible’s mandate to care about–and for, those in need. Nor any way to dodge the Bible’s mandate that every Christian is a missionary (Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:18-20) tasked with taking the message that Jesus died and rose again to save sinners like me, to other sinners.

Again, it’s the relationship between the two that’s dicey. Which takes priority–should a local church give both equal attention? In a recentdiscussion with Capitol Baptist Pastor Mark Dever, Sojourners editor Jim Wallis insisted everything from racial reconciliation to helping the poor should be the church’s work–they’re “integral” to the gospel he said. Dever agreed that the gospel has social implications and that people genuinely transformed by the gospel should care about anyone in need. And help individually as led. But he couldn’t agree that it’s the church’s main job. That, he said, is evangelism and discipleship.

Manhattan pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian will keep the discussion alive with his just-released book Generous Justice about which he asserts: “All I know is, if I don’t care about the poor, if my church doesn’t care about the poor, that’s evil.”

I think I can agree with that. However, the enemy is happy to use bad or good things to supplant the gospel. For example, until Jesus returns, there will always be hunger, poverty, suffering. Jesus said so. True, some of our forebears used that to excuse a lack of concern and assistance for the poor. Because we cannot erase something does not mean we cannot alleviate it.

But the danger to Christ’s church remains that if the magnitude of evil, suffering, hunger, AIDS, poverty, and sex trafficking gets to us, we may throw all of our time and resources at those great needs and perhaps neglect the good news whose effects transcend this life.